Because they’re not just fixing prices in the U.S., Canada has struck a deal that would, gasp!, allow retailers to control the prices of books. You know, their own goods!

Anne R. Allen discusses why novellas are hot. Great article, and good to hear as my first novella should be published sometime in the next month or so.

DreamWorks is forming their own publishing imprint. This is genius. What you’re seeing is a company with a wealth of intellectual property, doesn’t want to share that with publishers. Whether or not this will work is still up for debate. It’s one thing to make black and white print fiction, a whole nother to do illustrated or art heavy children’s books.

Digital Book World has another survey that might whip people up. It’s a satisfaction survey with traditional and self publishing methods. Again, this is seriously skewed if you don’t have people who’ve submitted to traditional publishing and been rejected and include those who don’t take self publishing even a little seriously.

It hit the news last Friday that Sony has pulled out of the ebook market, giving their customers over to Kobo. Mike Shatzkin has a pretty good analysis of this, theorizing that this could possibly be the framework for Barnes and Noble’s next move.

Joe Konrath has a great post, discussing the role of gatekeepers in the new world of publishing. Everyone loves to get angry about how it’s a vs match between the two and they should both be equal, viable options. Well, here’s the thing, they’re not. Are publishers going to give you more sales, not necessarily, and certainly not if you put in the work. And then if it does take off, if you succeed in becoming a blockbuster, they own that blockbuster lock, stock and barrel. Name a right, they have it. Name a year you’ll be alive, more than likely it goes longer. That’s not viable nor is it acceptable.

Teleread has a post about the fired writer of the Vampire Diaries, and how through Kindle Worlds, he is continuing the story the way he would have originally. I don’t really care for the Vampire Diaries, but this is pretty cool. There are a few sh0ws (FIREFLY!!!!) who I’d really like to see how they would have gone had fate not intervened.

Author Delilah Marvelle writes an open letter to her agent, Donald Maas. She is also self-published. She has one of the best responses I’ve seen, very fair and very honest.

Hugh Howey discusses how print might not be everything publishers are saying it is. I do not believe that print books will go the way of newspapers, at least not for a while. That said, for the cost it is a hard to justify endeavor for some authors and I don’t think we should be looked down on for not being eager to pursue it.

Russel Blake revisits the Tsunami of Crap issue with self publishing and discusses why he doesn’t think it’s as big a deal as some might think.

I know I’ve been linking to a lot of Hugh Howey’s posts this week, and I don’t want anyone to think I’m spamming or just ripping stuff from his site, it’s just that he keeps putting things so damn succinctly. Part of what I wanted Sharing the Wealth to do was distribute the best information on self publishing to that one person who visits on Friday, to give them that one glimpse they’re looking for. Mr. Howey’s post is about luck, and it is the root of everything everyone in self publishing is saying. Writing is hard, nigh impossible to be succesfful in, but self publishing offers you a better chance. Even when it is a barely visible sliver of a chance, it is more than what you get from the other side. Now my spin, the reason it’s an us vs them debate is because that side has dug themselves into a hole and drug authors into it. Sometimes I think about all the books I’ll never read because they got chewed up in that meat grinder and I’m horrified.

A victory against AuthorSolutions from the ever awesome David Gaughran, who has some of the best articles on that place around (including this one, which is old but I missed it and can’t believe it).